Top Tips For Choosing The Right Domain Name

Web bureau's top tips for choosing a domain name for your business.

1. If you are purchasing a '.co.uk' domain name for your business e.g. mynewbusiness.co.uk, make sure you also buy the other main Top Level Domains for the same prefix (e.g. mynewbusiness.com, mynewbusiness.net). This will ensure that no-one else can come in at a later stage and capitalise on your brand name using another major domain name type. we would recommend that you only really need to purchase .com, .co.uk, .org and .net - this may change in the future but should be sufficient for now.

2. It is possible that your small business may grow into different areas of interest so it may be useful not to choose a domain name that is too business specific.

3. If there is only one variant of your chosen domain name available e.g. mynewbusiness.co.uk - then it may be wise to choose a different name that has all the other variants. At a bit of time at this stage will save you much hassle in the future.

4. Keep your domain name as short & simple as possible - it would also be preferable if its needs to be memorable, and preferably does not contain hyphens.

5. A few web promotion firms suggest inserting your major keywords into your domain name wherever possible to help with your search engine rankings. We do not subscribe to this view. Sure, there may be some small benefits in having some keywords in your domain name e.g. 'best-product-in-the-world.co.uk', but your web promotion effort should come later. Your domain name should be chosen to best represent your company's interests rather than to please the fickle search engines!

6. Choose a reputable domain name supplier. A company which has been around a while and is well known is a fairly good bet - also check out the forums for any negative feedback. We'd also recommend choosing a company which provides a user interface so that you can manually edit your domain name details (email forwarding, transferring your domain name elsewhere). We've used Easily for all our domain name purchases for the past 8 years!

7. If you intend to buy a multiple numbers of domains, try to hold them with one single domain name company e.g. 123 reg. Domains are far easier to administrate and keep up-to-date if they are in a single place that is trustworthy. having multiple domains with many companies can be a nightmare.

8. Make sure you keep your contact information up-to-date. Although your domain name supplier is bound to contact you when a domain name comes up for renewal, it is your responsibility in the end.